Wolfire Games Forums

Well, that's where the atlatel comes in. Flint-tipped spear heads, and wooden shafts.

Remember, despite many people's veiws the bow is still a bit low-tech also. Early humans only needed to invent cord which was weaved from grass orginaly, shape the bow using wood and then tie the cord to it. The early bow would not shoot arrows that far but was still effective for that time. So depending on how it is made and shaped a bow can be just as low-tech as the sling. Besides, if they have a system of goverment with a king *shrugs* I think they would have also developed metal tools and waepons of war. Just my opinion.

I found that the Lord of the Rings aiming system was the most satisfying I have ever used. And as it looks like we might be fighting large quantities of enemies in game, I think it would probably be the most sensible. (For ye whom have not played yon game, the system runs somewhat as follows: You point yourself roughly at the target holding the ranged weapon button, the target the computer thinks is closest lights up with a spot of light above the head, and you hold down the attack button and release when you think the shot is "charged" enough.)

Kalexon: What are you referring to when you say 'early humans'?
They found that people in the neolithic age were already very capable and made bows akin to those used in England during the english-french war in the middle ages. Also, for strings they often used the intestines of game...

As for aiming... since it's very easy to aim a bow IRL (e.g. in Kyu-dô, you don't actually 'aim' per se, you just look at the target, and with enough training, the bow adjusts... plus, you have the option of shooting another arrow to correct for mistakes), it's probably very hard to port that feeling to a game. Especially elevation would be hard to gauge, without an indicator of sorts.

In any case, bows&arrows are probably not the best choice, since they rather gain their advantage from numbers, and in larger battles, as light support weaponry. A crossbow with sights would be much easier to implement from a realistic pov (if we have katana and scimitars, spring steel isn't too far-fetched). Aiming could be done akin to Call of Duty, whithout the crosshairs. You press a button and enter a first-person perspective, where you 'aim down the sights' (or along the bolt, more accurately... although I have no idea how middle-ages crossbows were aimed).

What type of crossbow are we talking about here? The old ones with the cranks? Those would be useless except against one guy, or the "newer" ones?

Of course I mean aim with mouse when I say aim, aiming with the keyboard
would be, I agree, horrible!

Toshiro mentioned pressing a button to enter first-person mode (Like in the Zelda games), which is a nice idea.
It wouldn't be uncomfortable either I think, just press the scroll button on the mouse.
Or maybe you could enter a ranged weapon mode,
where it doesn't go fully into a first-person mode, but zooms in on Turner. (Like in Fable(?))

when it comes to bows, I'd say...
Arrows got weight. the harder and heavier it is, the more powerfull it is. The lighter it is the farther it go. I say, aim with mouse (including height) with the mouse, and click and hold to make a more powerfull shot.

say there's two boats on the sea, both of them are about 20metres away from eachother. all of the people onboard got shields and bows. You don't aim right at them; you aim up in the air, making the arrow go high upwards and fall downwards like a heavy stone, probably over the shields and penetrating someones skull.



edit: anybody played the old game where there's two tanks and a hill between them? compare.

Nuky wrote:I say, aim with mouse (including height) with the mouse, and click and hold to make a more powerfull shot.

Exactly!
Thats how me likes it!
(Pocket Tanks)

Zaphon wrote:Toshiro mentioned pressing a button to enter first-person mode (Like in the Zelda games), which is a nice idea.
It wouldn't be uncomfortable either I think, just press the scroll button on the mouse.
Or maybe you could enter a ranged weapon mode,
where it doesn't go fully into a first-person mode, but zooms in on Turner. (Like in Fable(?))

That was me who said that, Zaphon.

Just for the record, it was Scorched Earth. Pocket Tanks is merely a clone.
Scorched Earth is the Mother of All Games.

Scorched Earth is definitely a clone too; I remember playing power/elevation games a loooong time before Scorched Earth came out. Here is one that I played a lot back when I was three or four, but it could easily be a clone of something else. http://mac.the-underdogs.org/index.php?show=game&id=667

Evil Penguin wrote:Whoops! My fault, and while we are at it, grammar is the way you put sentences together, spelling is... Um... Spelling stuff.

This is untrue. Grammar is : "The study of how words and their component parts combine to form sentences."
That includes the spelling, since letters are component parts of words. It appears you were wrong.
P.S. I AM aware that what Evil Penguin posted was posted quite a long time ago. I haven't been on in a while.